Rating

We may have swashbuckling high-adventure and we may have spine-tingling drama, but we're not a gritty MUSH. Our rating is a flat PG-13, no higher. What this means is while there's more room for danger, drama, and injury than there is on the show, it cannot have the gore and trauma of a rated-R flick. Injury and trauma should be roleplayed vaguely and without intricate details. There can be mention of blood, without describing a never-ending font of it.

While there's room for trials and suffering in a PG-13 environment, we emphasize that these are character building tools and obstacles to be overcome, not ends in and of themselves. Of course, scene rating can always, and should frequently, be lower than PG-13, but it can *never* be higher. Please roleplay accordingly.

Of course, as a corollary to that, it should be clear: there is NO SEX on this MUSH. That's what a tasteful fade-to-black is for, if the topic does come up. If players are caught TSing ('tiny-sex'ing, or roleplaying sex) on the MUSH, we will take harsh disciplinary action. Repeated incidents will lead to a straight-up ban.

Also, keep in mind that My Little Pony is a cartoon, which means the rules of Funny Physics apply. Things that are lethal in our world are not necessarily so in this one, so long as it's for a light-hearted reason. Just because you were flung out a window doesn't mean you need to go to the hospital with broken bones. You can feel free to deal with lethal events without necessarily incurring lethal consequences, so long as it's for effect, and not for skipping out on consequences on your character (ICA=ICC still applies).

Age Policy

Due to the nature of our game, all players are required to be 13 and over. Characters, however, are not. You can play everything from the littlest foal to the oldest zebra. The sky's the limit!

Lounge Etiquette

We hold our players to the high standard of behaving like adults. To play here, you must be respectful to the players around you. Treat each person with, at minimum, the respect you would afford an acquaintance or a stranger on the street.

While we enjoy a welcoming 'family' feeling on the MUSH, please realize that getting into intense personal details is not appropriate in the lounge. Issues like this should be brought up on the Venting channel. If you do not take your intense personal life to the appropriate channel, you will be disciplined.

As far as public displays of affection amongst players go, if it involves a mouth, don't do it. No licking, eating, macking, etc of another player should be happening here. That gets creepy quickly, and it can make a lot of players uncomfortable. There is such a thing as creepy PDA, and you need to keep that in mind so you don't cross the line. Would you do it with someone you've only briefly met twice? No? Then don't do it here.

If someone is doing something that annoys you, please ask them to stop, or talk to staff.

Spelling and Grammar

Perfect spelling and grammar is not required. Everyone makes mistakes! We do request that you try to be coherent, however. As this is a text medium and thus clear communication is key, we humbly request that you break up huge poses into paragraphs with %r, break up run-on sentences, and finally run spell-check wherever possible. Please do your best!

Consent

This is a completely consensual game. Although in-character actions will result in in-character consequences, nothing severe can happen to your character without your consent, including character death.

We are counting on you, as a player, not to abuse this rule.

We are counting on your fellow players to do the same.

If a player is abusing this rule to evade in-character consequences, there will be out-of-character consequences to go with them.

Death

Death does happen. It's a natural part of the lifecycle, and there will be times in this game when death strikes.

When a pony reaches the end of his or her life expectancy — be it after a long and storied life, or somewhat abruptly at the teeth of a hydra — she doesn't exactly die. Instead, the Bone Mistress will come to take the dying pony off to live amongst the stars. This is an event that merits celebration in pony culture — not because they are gone, but because it's considered good to celebrate their life. Plus, they're up in the sky every night anyway.

That said, the Bone Mistress does have a bit of a hard time in the harbor. Ponies just keep cheating death through one way or another, and it makes her life very hard. It's rare enough to be a surprise to a living, but annoying enough to her that it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Pregnancy

Pregnancy is a thing that can happen on grid, and we have a policy in place for that. Our goal with this policy is to allow characters to have a family, without having the grid explode into babies and without fostering unnecessary drama.

Let it be a reminder, that our rating does NOT allow for the particulars of conception to be RPed out. There is no sex allowed on this MUSH. No ifs, ands, or buts. (Or even butts!)

If you want your character to become pregnant, you must ask a staffer first. We're a terrible dictatorship that controls the number of squalling offspring on-grid. Here are a few guidelines that will help:

Pregnancy must stem from an already established couple. While single parenthood is certainly a possibility, it also can come with unnecessary drama. We may approve that on a case-by-case basis, but the chance is slim.

Having a kid must be a consensual decision by both parties.

You have to have established that you can stick with a storyline (such as having and raising a child) for the long-term.

Sidenote: Although we recognize the validity of breastfeeding, and that it's a natural thing, we're not about to debate the validity of 'crotchboob' or whatever. Please do not breastfeed your foals. If a bottle is good enough for the Cakes, it's good enough for you.

Pose Order

We're trying to keep PonyMUSH light, and part of that is keeping to little-to-no pose order. Depending on the size of the scene, it's generally considered polite to at least casually observe the rule of two's or three's, wherein you wait for two or three people to pose before you pose again. That way you allow everyone a chance to get a pose in edgewise, but not hold up the scene.

In general, try to respond in about a minute or two, and if you plan to take a while, say something OOCly. Not much to say? One line poses are fine, so nobody thinks they should wait on you; but please remember that it's good RP etiquette to have an action in your pose for others to react to.

In plot scenes it can be a little more important that people go in order so as not to jump the gun. We still don't require strict pose order — unless the scene's GM does — but we request a more strict adherence to the rule of two or three (depending on scene size).

Plots

Plots here are not necessarily staff-run. In fact, we want this to be as collaborative an experience as possible. If you want to run a plot, then by all means, run it. Take a look at our Running a Plot page!

Staff may choose to dole out karma points to plot-GMs and the players in the plots. Please keep within the rating, or you will be smote.

Please keep in mind this is a purely consent-based MUSH, and you should use +events to schedule your events to make sure you're not stepping on any toes. Don't schedule a plot for the same time as someone else's without talking to them first. We prefer not to split interest too much, given that we're a small game.

That said, we're large enough now that running two scenes at once is entirely plausible — but it's rude to snipe another scene's players, as may be the case if they're scheduled at the same time. So, just check in with that player first, and everyone will be happy!

TinyPlots

Tiny plots or "one night stands" (ONS) are short one-to-three session plots that have a limited scope. It shouldn't affect the world too much, shouldn't involve much in the way of NPCs, and so on.

You do not have to run TinyPlots by staff. We believe in creativity and spontaneity!

If it messes up the world somehow — such as destroying a building, say — then you should have plans to rebuild as part of the aftermath. After all, rebuilding Carrot Corner could be fun RP!

But if you mess up the area to the point where it's going to take longer than a couple days to get it back together — say, by inciting nuclear war — there's going to be an unhappy visit from an unhappy goddess to put things right and everyone involved in the ONS is going to have to spend Karma to repair it. (In other words, you lost your good karma because the goddess is mad at you!)

Long story short, play nice!

Big Plots

More overarching long-term plots, however, should be thought out before they're done. If your plot is going to involve a lot of people, multiple sessions, NPCs, epic quests, etc, you should write it out and send it to the staff.

Obviously, plans don't always survive contact with the enemyplayers, but we ask that you write a little bit about what you're planning, what goals you have, and so on and so forth. We'll look it over and let you know.

We understand that sometimes TinyPlots turn into Big ones. Don't worry! It happens! Just give us a write-up of what's happened so far and where you plan to go from here.

Feature Characters

We do not allow people to play characters featured on the show, otherwise known as "feature characters." That means no Twilight Sparkle, no Spike, no Trixie, no nothin'. We as staff don't want to have to pick and choose who will play the best Fluttershy, and don't want to go through the rigamarole of an application process to do it. This MUSH takes place in a setting that is divorced from Ponyville for a reason, and that'd be it. That's also why Wizards have FCs for their names. These characters are non-playable and strictly OOC.

You may not have your characters connected to FCs in some way, lest the entire grid be populated by Twilight Sparkle's cousins. Keep it safe, keep it kosher, people.

In addition, we are denying anyone playing other characters "featured" on the show — characters like Derpy, Doctor W/hoof/ves, and Vinyl Scratch, whom multiple people might be interested in playing. Sorry folks!

TL;DR: Original Characters Only Please.

Naming Conventions

Ponies are named for any number of things: their special talents, their coloring, their personality, and so on. Sometimes they're plays on words, like "Cheerliee" and "Puzzlemint." But no matter how they're chosen, the names are always descriptive in nature.

In PonyMUSH's version of Equestria, Celestia comes around during the Midsummer Bash to suggest names for all the new foals. OOCly, this means one of a number of things:

1) you can choose a name for your foal and whichever staffmember is playing Celestia will bestow it upon them.
2) You might have an idea for a personality or a talent, but not a name idea. Staff will choose a name and bestow it.
3) If you have no idea whatsoever, staff will pick one for you.

Either way, there's a certain flavor that should be adhered to for pony-names. While they don't all have to be sickeningly fluffy like "Flitter Flutter," they do need to be appropriately descriptive. "Normal" names like "Gary" or "Anna" are not permitted in the ponyverse.

Likewise, foul language, references to genitalia, and other such things are inappropriate. Use your head, people.

As an exception, seaponies, gryphons, and zebras can have more general names. Names like 'Frank,' however, are still greatly discouraged.

Alts

You are, in general, allowed to have as many alts as you'd like. However, we have limited space to work with, and so we request a few things, regarding alts:

1) Please wait a reasonable amount of time between making alts. The exact amount of time can change, but around three weeks is a good estimate. This is to ensure that you're actually RPing on the alt you have, and not just taking up names and database objects.
2) No name-camping. Please don't reserve a name by creating the object, and then never use it. You're going to get a strike against you for that.
3) If you have an alt, you need to RP on it. It doesn't have to be every day, but if you find you're not really RPing on them and it was just a whim, then please notify staff so they can freeze it or destroy it.

This way, we keep our database nice and clean, and we can make sure there's plenty of RP!

NPCs

NPCs are characters whom anyone can RP. For example, the owner of a shop others frequent can be played by anyone who happens to be in there. If you create an NPC, do a quick write-up on the characters page so that others can see how they're played.

Usually NPCs are characters with extremely minor roles in your character's life that may be played once in a while. Since we allow unlimited chargen, we figure that's an unnecessary delineation for PonyMUSH.

Twinks and Metagaming

Twinks are characters who are roleplayed to be super-powerful or rule-bendy. No one likes a twink. No one wants to RP with a twink. A believable character will have believable flaws and weaknesses. Twinks are unacceptable on PonyMUSH.

Roleplay should always be about give and take. Sure, some characters will be more powerful at some things than others (Trixie beat out most of the mane six, after all), but no character is invincible — except perhaps Celestia! If your character is approaching anything like Celestia's power, you're doing it wrong.

If you are having problems figuring out how to moderate a scene, feel free to use our +roll system. If that still doesn't work, a neutral third party may be tagged to GM the scene.

In addition, you are not permitted to use OOC knowledge for IC gain. If your character doesn't know something, they are not permitted to act on it, nor to suddenly desire to find it out.

Idle Policy

Any characters who haven't logged on in one month is automatically swept to the Freezer Room (#218). There's no penalty for being there: it just takes you off the +census. You can leave at any time.

If you have not logged in for 3 months, we reserve the right to @dest your character to make room on the database.

Privacy Policy

You are not permitted to be set DARK in any room where other players are present, unless they know specifically that you are there and DARK. This policy includes staff members; you will not be spied on without your knowledge.

You are not required to disclose any valid RL details about yourself. The wizards ARE privy to your IP address but will not abuse that in any way.

Anything said on the venting ("whining") channel stays on the venting channel. Anyone who violates this policy will earn a mark against them.

Disciplinary Policy

Depending on your infraction, discipline can be very harsh. We are VERY serious about this MUSH being a collaborative experience. If your actions are threatening the integrity of the MUSH, or otherwise putting a bad foot forward to our players, you may very well be asked to leave.

We take things like harassment, abuse, and poor conduct very seriously. The more infractions you incur, the less leeway you get when staff doles out punishment.

Some examples of punishments:

A required apology to parties involved.

Temporary ban (30-60 days)

Permanent ban.

Probation/restriction from plots.

We are harsh and unfeeling gods. If it gets to the point where we have to get involved, expect angry wizards. So try to work it out yourselves, and don't be a jerk.

Ethical Rules

Although we allow younger players, we expect our playerbase to act with maturity. If you feel you can't responsibly follow our guidelines, then you can leave. The teal-deer version of our rules is that we expect all people on the game — staff and players alike — to act like decent human beings. But for everyone's sake, read through these guidelines.

Keep to the spirit of the show.

Though we allow a greater breadth of rating and themes than the show tends to offer, we still want everyone to keep to the spirit of the show. This MUSH hinges on cooperation and discussion. We request that everyone be kind to each other, and welcoming to newcomers. Focus on having fun and generating RP.

Not everyone has to be friends.

That said, that doesn't mean you have to be friends with everyone. We recognize that not everyone can get along. If you run into someone you absolutely cannot get along with or interact with civilly, then don't interact with them. It's okay if you can't be friends with everyone. If you really need to vent some anger, we find that writing some hulk-ku helps. Some people are Pinkie Pies, and other people are Gildas. And that's okay.

Don't feed the trolls.

It's not about you.

If someone doesn't want to RP with you, don't hassle them about it. If they don't want to give you a reason, don't push for a reason. If they do give you a reason, respect it and leave them alone. They don't want to RP with you, and that's that.

Take appropriate discussion to the appropriate channel.

We have several different channels for different reasons. You can view them all with '@clist' or at the Channel Guide. The reason we have so many channels is because while we think everyone should be allowed to express, not everyone has to listen to it. If someone asks you to take it to a channel, please do so graciously. On the same coin, if you must ask someone to take it to a channel, remember to be polite. Don't make demands.

Agree to disagree.

Not everyone will agree. That's okay. If you get into a heated discussion or debate, please either take it to the Discussion channel or agree to disagree.

Have a sense of humor.

This is just a game. Let me repeat this: this is just a game. Stuff happens. Have a sense of humor about things! If you find yourself throwing a fit over something that's happening in game, perhaps you need to take a step back and examine yourself. You're playing a technicolor pony over telnet. What's not funny about that?

ICA = ICC

In-character actions = in-character consequences. Though this is a consent-based game, that doesn't mean you can escape bad things happening to your character altogether. If you constantly run into the pony-eating hydra camp and demand you not die, something is wrong and actions will be taken. You need to stop running into the pony-eating hydra camp! Don't abuse the consent system.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.

Seriously, things are better when everyone is on the same page. Talk to each other out of character about your plans. Coordinate. Don't walk all over someone else's toes.

No abuse.

Don't abuse the system, the staff, the other players… anything. We shouldn't have to say this.

We are harsh and unfeeling gods.

This is largely an autonomous MUSH, with staff who try not to be in everyone's business. We expect everyone to be on their best behavior and police themselves to the best of their ability. But should it come down to a point when the staff get involved, this is not a democracy. We are harsh and unfeeling gods. We want to keep the feeling of our MUSH light and undrama'd. If we have to step in, expect no mercy. So work it out yourselves if you can.

Need some specific examples of unacceptable behavior?

Some examples of policy breach includes:

Hacking another player's PC object.

Spying on other players through the use of code, including Invisible Objects.

Hacking any aspect of the MUSH, be it hard or soft code.

Attempting to impersonate a Staff Member or a Fellow Player in any fashion, be it @emits or anything else.

Unnecessary vulgarity in public forums such as the OOC room and public channel.

Any acts of racism, bigotry and lack of tolerance for others.

Lying to staff members.

Lying about, or otherwise attempting to falsely incriminate other players or staffers.

Intentional violation of written rules.

Harassment.

Baiting or provoking other players or staff to anger. This includes playing characters whose primary/only intent is to antagonize.

Using OOC information for roleplay. Including inconclusive OOC information such as using your feelings on a matter OOCly to influence your roleplay.

Posing your PC doing things beyond the means of their abilities.

Using Player Run Plots as a means to attack other player characters.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it's a very good one.We also yanked it wholesale from Tenebrae MUSH.

What to do if you see someone breaking the rules

1. Talk to them

Don't be a jerk about it, first of all. But it doesn't hurt to point it out. If you're having a conflict, work it out yourselves. Be mature about it.

2. Talk to a staff member

If you need mediation, you can talk to a staff member. Again, don't expect mercy.